Filling a niche

Hawaii Repertory Theatre believes it can build an audience for high-quality drama

No question about it, Honolulu loves live theater. We have more than a dozen local theater groups -- more if major high school theater programs are counted -- and their collective efforts create a broad spectrum of theatrical fare, from mainstream Broadway musicals and Shakespeare, to edgy experimental stuff and the earnest work of island playwrights.

'THE REAL THING' Inaugural performance by Hawaii Repertory Theatre: On stage: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 4 p.m. Sundays, through Oct. 22 Place: Princess Abigail Kawananakoa Auditorium, 49 Funchal St. Tickets: $22.50; $17.50 seniors; $14.50 students Call: 550-8458 or visit hawaiireptheatre.org

And yet, says Brian Lee Sackett, the founder and artistic director of Hawaii Repertory Theatre, there are still important niches to fill.

"The regional theater movement is very strong in the large cities (on the mainland), and it has always been lacking here in Hawaii," Sackett explained.

"The Actors' Group does a lot of (repertory)-type of material, but they haven't got the space to fully stage it, and we've got the resources here."

By "here" Sackett means the Princess Abigail Kawananakoa Auditorium at Kawananakoa Middle School. HRT grew out of a school group presenting children's theater at Kawananakoa. The new group is a separate nonprofit corporation, but has access to the same facility.

"We've got this huge auditorium, a huge stage (and) we've built the reputation with the school here, so why don't we take those resources and start using them to stand out and grow in this direction as well?" he says.

"We're trying to start something new here, something that's not done here but that is a very important part of communities all over the mainland."

One example of a show "not done here" is HRT's inaugural production of "The Real Thing," by Tony Award-winning playwright Tom Stoppard, opening this weekend. It is described as "an intellectually and emotionally engaging backstage comedy" about a romantically idealistic playwright, his actress/wife and a self-styled "political prisoner" who considers himself a radical playwright. The wife, who wants to merge politics and theater, asks her husband to make over the prisoner's clumsily written screed. The husband accepts the challenge, but begins to wonder if the "political prisoner" may be nothing more than a thug who has learned to win sympathy by claiming that his crimes are political acts.

It's the sort of production that TAG or the University of Hawaii at Manoa might take on, Sackett says, but not Diamond Head Theatre or Manoa Valley Theatre. "It's not gonna draw enough people."

"We're willing to nurture our audience -- start small, get people used to this type of theater. ... You can't just give up on them and do another 'The King and I' or 'Oklahoma.' You're never gonna nurture them into changing their expectations, and we're willing to do that. That's the direction we want to go," he says.

"We teach people in English class that 'drama' is 'Death of a Salesman' and Shakespeare, and these wonderful works of literature, and then you go to see live theater and those (types of shows) don't exist in many places; it's only the big musicals."

But what about the Hawaii Shakespeare Festival, which presents three shows each summer? And as for "Death of a Salesman," Hawaii Pacific University presented it in 2002.

Sackett says it's not the same.

"HPU is an educational theater, which is a different realm, and the Shakespeare Festival has a different purpose. I think it's more to enjoy the process -- it's more of a festive thing. We have a very focused goal of presenting professional-quality polished productions like you'd see in regional theater ... not the musicals or 'entertainment,' but challenging, engaging dramatic literature."

Sackett hopes that HRT will give veteran actors the opportunity to return to the stage in roles that they find interesting and challenging. To do that, he'll have to get Honolulu "hooked" on the type of shows his group will be presenting.

Firsthand experience tells him it can happen.

"I was in musical theater. That's where I started, and that's what I had always wanted to do -- 'Man of La Mancha' and all the big ones -- and then I started going to see the (shows at) the Guthrie and the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis and the Indiana Rep, and I was amazed that theater could have that kind of power. ... Now that I've found it, I'm hooked on it and can't go back to the other."